Mr. Aubrey de Vere is very desirous that I should arrange all the “Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty” together in series, as Wordsworth left them, “on the principle that, though the order of publication should as a rule be the order of composition in poetry, all rules require, as well as admit of, exceptions.”  As I have the greatest respect for the judgment of such an authority as Mr. de Vere, I may explain that I only venture to differ from him because there are seventy-four Poems—­including the sonnets and odes—­in this series, and because they cover a period ranging from 1802 to 1815.  I am glad, however, that many of these sonnets can be printed together, especially the earlier ones of 1802.

After carefully weighing every consideration, it has seemed to me desirable to adopt the chronological arrangement in this particular edition; in which an attempt is made to trace the growth of Wordsworth’s genius, as it is unfolded in his successive works.  His own arrangement of his Poems will always possess a special interest and value; and it is not likely ever to be entirely superseded in subsequent issues of his Works.  The editors and publishers of the future may possibly prefer it to the plan now adopted, and it will commend itself to many readers from the mere fact that ‘it was Wordsworth’s own’; but in an edition such as the present—­which is meant to supply material for the study of the Poet to those who may not possess, or have access to, the earlier and rarer editions—­no method of arrangement can be so good as the chronological one.  Its importance will be obvious after several volumes are published, when the point referred to above—­viz. the evolution of the poet’s genius—­will be shown by the very sequence of the subjects chosen, and their method of treatment from year to year.

The date of the composition of Wordsworth’s Poems cannot always be ascertained with accuracy:  and to get at the chronological order, it is not sufficient to take up his earlier volumes, and thereafter to note the additions made in subsequent ones.  We now know (approximately) when each poem was first published; although, in some instances, they appeared in newspapers and magazines, and in many cases publication was long after the date of composition.  For example, ’Guilt and Sorrow; or, Incidents upon Salisbury Plain’—­written in the years 1791-94—­was not published ‘in extenso’ till 1842.  The tragedy of ‘The Borderers’, composed in 1795-96, was also first published in 1842.  ’The Prelude’—­“commenced in the beginning of the year 1799, and completed in the summer of 1805”—­was published posthumously in 1850:  and some unpublished poems—­both “of early and late years”—­were first issued in 1886.  A poem was frequently kept back, from some doubt as to its worth, or from a wish to alter and amend it.  Of the five or six hundred sonnets that he wrote, Wordsworth said “Most of them were frequently re-touched; and, not a few, laboriously.”  Some poems were almost entirely recast; and occasionally fugitive verses were withheld from publication for a time, because it was hoped that they would subsequently form part of a larger whole.